Follow up to the flaws spotted

I took into consideration all the advice my friend, Rudy who does filming and media studies to improve my animation.

After altering the flaws in my animation, I find that the comments he gave very helpful and is very true. I am more caustious now. However, it still requires alot of time and afford to look through the animation over and over again. Due to time constrain, I am leaving some details i want to change to a rest.

Since I have other work that I need to pay attention too as well.

The Sony Vegas Movie Studio Software is very helpful and does a better job than Windows Movie Maker. I am able to directly edit the volume of each character's voice. Also I could add different sound effect on different bar as it is not limited.

Showing My Project to a Media Practitioner

I did a raft compilation of my animations with background music, sound effect and transitions on Windows Movie Maker.

I wanted to know if this is the compilation could be improved. Therefore, I called a friend who does filming and media.

He wasn't impressed with Windows Movie Maker as it was very inaccurate to do any adjustment for audio volume.

In Addition, I got some comments to improve some parts of my animation that had flaws and wasn't good.

Such as,

1. The timing of voice and illustration would be better if it is synchronize.

2. Character's eyes blinking too frequent

3. To use another colour or stroke for the font so that it does not camouflage with the back ground.
(even thought it's a second)

4. Too many details and information in a scene
(that does not help an audience to capture the information.)

5. Volume for the voices should be edited to be the same.

6. Be aware of voice volume hitting the peak of the audio bar.
(that would cause sound to crack because it's too loud)


Besides that, I was advised to use a trial version of Sony Vegas Movie Studio to edit and produce my movie as it has better quality.

It was them I WANTED!! THEY ARE THE CAST!

It was Anna Bronowska as Basila, Andre Anderson as Mutusammy, Leslie Gregory as Basilo and Sophie as Rummie the mushroom.

It was not that others didn't have a good voice many of them had such confident and out spoken voice, sounded almost professional. However, as I put the voice with the character, the voice didn't seem to connect with the character. That was my experience of talent scouting. I enjoyed so much as I got to experience being a director to tell them about my story and how I wanted them speak it.

One of the problems that arise from this was the short time I had for myself to edit the voices or for my actors to re-record if some script was not spoken well. I hope to catch up on them next Tuesday before submission on Wednesday.

Character Voice Hunt (The Best Day Ever)

I set out to scout for the right voice for my characters around college. My participants were 18-60 years old, as many as 15 of them.

After recording their voices with them saying the script, I looped them on the player and heard it accompanying with the animated character. It was such a joyful moment (as though a crowd of choir singing ‘’Hallelujah’’ in the background) after I’ve heard the voice that I wanted my character to have.

Voice Hunting

I showed my work to robin today and my feedback was that the voices for the characters could be better. At this point, the voices of the characters are I and my sister. I edited the pitch of her voice and mine to match each character. Lowering the pitch if it was for Basilo and Mutusammy, Higher pitch for Basila and Rummie. Robin says that it is not very understandable what the characters are saying.

Reasons:
1. Accent
2. Tone
3. Pitch

The accent for Mutusammy is of an Indian accent. However, it causes the animation script to be unclear to the audience.

The tone for each character might not be suitable for a documentary cartoon animation. I need to learn how other documentaries speak in their show.

The pitch for Rummie and Basila sounds very artificial. I increased the pitch of the voice recording which caused it to have a chipmunk effect. The voices are very cartoon like (alien voice), adorable and funny but that is the reason it is then unsuitable for an informative animation I would like to present to my audience.

Therefore, despite the short of time I would want to scout for talent among people I know for suitable voice, and if they would spare me some time to read the scripts for of the character.

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Study on "The Great Animal Show"

I intend to do a study on the bbc2 programme Animal Kingdom.

This is to survey and analyse the use of animation even in a documentary programme.

I personally feel that it is a good combination of real images and cartoon drawings and live video.

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Creating the Scenes in Anime Studio Pro. 7

My task today is to create nine scenes.

Previously, I have created the character making it's lip and eye sync and making its bone movement.

I have created all this in different sheets. Today my task is to put them all in a scene and possibly to make the backdrop too.

I must publish it by Sunday!

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Re-assessing My Animation

I showed my progress to my tutor. The feedback was learning to eliminate and re edit my scenes.

The important fact is knowing the purpose of my animation. Re evaluating my work if I have captured my target audience.

In my case Richard mention, I could have a longer version and shorter version for a different context.

At the moment, my work is more of a comedy and documentary.

However, I have mention that I would like it to fit into a cook show. I have to decide if I want to make it a cook show instead or sticking to the script I have, which is a documentary animation.

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The Initial Voice Recording and Estimating Animation Lenght

To make things get moving, I used the help of my sister to read and act like the script of the animation.

After recording it, I edited the pitch to suit each character. Lowering the pitch for the male characters and increasing the pitch for the female characters. This process took a very long time. As I need to edit some of the bad sounds on Audacity, audio editing freeware.

After completing the sound editings, I played them all in their proper sequence on the media player. Through this process, I could observe the raft length of the whole animation.

It was 6 minutes long.

I decided to remove some of the lines in te script to shorten the animation as it would be very unhelpful for children or even adult to sit and watch an animation for 6minutes since average attention span for children is about 10 minutes.

After removing some script it became 4 minutes.

I'm still not happy with the length. I will need some advice from my tutor of what they think of the length of my animation.

Producing the Script

The time is ticking away. I realise, I really need to finalise the script for the animation I intend to produce.

I sat with my best friend to write down the script for the animation. I seem to can't get things right and need some decision making help.

I manage to finish the script. The crazy and lame jokes are from her just to make the animation not so boring. And the factual bits are compilation from researching about basil on the Internet from various sites.

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Learning how to use softwares.

seeing tutorials in youtube.

One Month Count Down to Dateline

It is now one month to out FMP submission.

I went to Ealing library to look at some books. I am finding drawing method, colour and tone experiment for my illustration.

I came across a book that wrote about how to draw vampires, werewolves, witches and zombies. What interested me was the colour, tone and shading for eerie scenes.

I realise, I need to experiment with colours and tones using the filters in photoshop to provide best effects for my animation have them.

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